Before he got Johnny Depp to cheat on Tim Burton, Gore Verbinski worked with a couple other name-above-the-title stars: Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts, in a less-than-successful film that is better than people might expect. The Mexican wasn’t the movie the marketing conveyed. It was misleadingly packaged as a “meet-cute”, couple’s movie starring the pretty people of Hollywood. Pitt stars as Jerry: a put-upon errand boy for a mobster sent on a final job across the border. Roberts plays his girlfriend, Samantha. She doesn’t deliver the America’s sweetheart role people expect from her. Missed by many, The Mexican is a fun, offbeat comedy- thriller-road movie that is packed with more character actors than autograph night at a comic convention. – DG